Political finance and direct democracy: introducing the ‘Referendum Campaign Finance Regulation Index’ (RefCFRI)

The recent tendency in the field of political finance of focusing on how different countries regulate the role of money in election campaigns has created a clearer picture of cross-national similarities in regulatory patterns, which has consequently translated in scholars attempting to explain the effects of these regulations. Providing a systematic and clear understanding of campaign regulations is paramount in order to understand and assess their impact, as well as whether or not they deliver on their envisioned policy goals of creating a level-playing-field for campaigning actors. However, similar approaches still lack in the study of referendum campaign finance, even though the last few decades have seen a proliferation in both referendum use and the implementation of new regulatory regimes governing them. Filling this knowledge gap is important since the volatile information context of referendums creates fertile ground for political parties to aspire voter behavior manipulation, partly because voters are less able to rely on party-affiliated cues. Campaign regulations such as transparency requirements and limits on income and expenditure can potentially help increase voter competence and fairness, as well as help battle corruption. This paper asks the question how cross-national variation in referendum campaign finance regulations can be categorized. In order to answer this, it introduces the Referendum Political Referendum Campaign Finance Regulation Index’ (RefCFRI) based on Horncastle's (2022) two-stage methodology of Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Model Based Clustering – previously used to develop the ‘Regulation of Political Finance Indicator’ (RoPFI). The index is compiled for 86 countries worldwide that have organized a national referendum since 1990, for which data is collected from primary sources, i.e. the relevant legislation, added where necessary with information from international election databases (primarily the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance Political Finance Database) and reports from the Council of Europe, GRECO and OSCE. In sum, the development of the RefCFRI both complements and extends the reach of the RoPFI, by providing data on a previously overlooked area of campaign financing. Taken together, these two indicators provide a major resource for scholars of political finance, elections, and referendum campaigns.